ause he had taught
Frenchmen the lessons of slavery by preaching atheism.... I hope, at
least, _citoyen_ Brotteaux, that, as soon as the Republic has
established the worship of Reason, you will not refuse your adhesion to
so wise a religion!"

"I love reason, but I am no fanatic in my love," was Brotteaux's answer.
"Reason is our guide and beacon-light; but when you have made a divinity
of it, it will blind you and instigate you to crime,"--and he proceeded
to develop his thesis, standing both feet in the kennel, as he had once
been used to perorate, seated in one of Baron d'Holbach's gilt
armchairs, which, as he was fond of saying, formed the basis of natural
philosophy.

"Jean Jacques Rousseau," he proceeded, "who was not without talents,
particularly in music, was a scampish fellow who professed to derive his
morality from Nature while all the time he got it from the dogmas of
Calvin. Nature teaches us to devour each other and gives us the example
of all the crimes and all the vices which the social state corrects or
conceals. We should love virtue; but it is well to know that this is
simply and solely a convenient expedient invented by men in order to
live comfortably together. What we call morality is merely a desperate
enterprise, a forlorn hope, on the part of our fellow creatures to
reverse the order of the universe, which is strife and murder, the blind
interplay of hostile forces. She destroys herself, and the more I think
of things, the more convinced I am that the universe is mad. Theologians
and philosophers, who make God the author of Nature and the architect of
the universe, show Him to us as illogical and ill-conditioned. They
declare Him benevolent, because they are afraid of Him, but they are
forced to admit that His acts are atrocious. They attribute a malignity
to him seldom to be found even in mankind. And that is how they get
human beings to adore Him. For our miserable race would never lavish
worship on just and benevolent deities from which they would have
nothing to fear; they would feel only a barren gratitude for their
benefits. Without purgatory and hell, your good God would be a mighty
poor creature."

"Sir," said the Pere Longuemare, "do not talk of Nature; you do not know
what Nature is."

"Egad, I know it as well as you do, Father."

"You cannot know it, because you have not religion, and religion alone
teaches us what Nature is, wherein it is good, and how it has been made
evil. H